Happy Groundhog Day, as today marks the convergence of two of the Blue Tower's
favorite occasions, with it also being Super Bowl Sunday. Word is our local
Staten Island Chuck and nearby
Punxsutawaney Phil each saw their shadows, scientific proof we should expect
six more weeks of wintery weather, though
Shipoke Sheena contradictorily says to expect an early spring, and she's not
phar phrom Phil, if you'll phorgive the phorced alliteration. I hope she turns
out to be right, because the six or so weeks of winter we've gotten so far
around these parts have been pretty rough, and some warmth and sunshine will be
welcome. Speaking of welcome, yes, the Super Bowl is tonight, and I certainly am
looking forward to that, as always. This year's game holds a lot of promise,
too, as it embodies so many classic conflicts: The AFC's one seed versus the one
seed from the NFC, offense versus defense, the old QB versus the kid, the run
versus the pass, good versus evil, orange orange versus lime green ... this one
has it all.

Beamer wrote on Feb 3, 2014, 01:23:You don't think that, if it was legal, you wouldn't have more people trying it out of curiosity?

Right now, illegality and it simply being difficult to access absolutely limits who is doing it. Obviously a large amount of people still have access to it, but I don't think it's hard to imagine that there are plenty of people that never try it because they never have the opportunity, and that the legal issues further discourage them from overcoming that. I don't think many people would disagree that no one listens to what the government discourages us from. Some, however, do listen to what they prohibit us from.

Removing all barriers will absolutely increase first time users, and for things like meth, first time users are never only time users.This isn't something like marijuana, which is harmless. This is something that legitimately destroys people.

Also, the "if people want to ruin themselves I say let them" argument below Prez' is a terrible one.

Lol, well since you avoid everything else in my post under the pretense of disagreeing with the basic premise of personal liberty laid out in the first sentence, could you at least explain why you think that's so terrible? Or are you just being typically disingenuous like so many others who are so quick to shrug off any notion of legalizing drugs? I don't think the government needs to be in the business of protecting people from themselves. Certainly not if the only goal is to prevent your "large amount of people" (I'd wager less than 1% of the population, are those who are inclined to want to do hard drugs and the only thing stopping them is a law) from harming themselves because they're stupid. It wouldn't be ignorance, either, because you would still have education of the dangers out there, as well as resources for those who need help when they've gotten in over their heads. Just like you do now for tobacco and alcohol, and those aren't even a fraction as harmful. At some point you need to allow common sense to do its work, or else you end up with Idiocracy.

Again, do you really think all of the negative consequences of these drugs being illegal is worth protecting that small subsect of the population from doing something dumb?